Have any of you ever had success working with a remote co-founder or know of anyone who has? What kind of distance were they? Did you meet in person and, if so, how often? How did it work legally and how did you obtain funding?
I read an article on here just recently about the history of 3D Studio apparently they where entirely remote back in the days of CompuServe which must have been fun to say the least, I did some remote projects back then and it was difficult. So I would say it does not preclude success but you have to have the right people. Open Source projects succeed every day in a completely remote development environment.
On of the things I noticed in the 3D Studio article though was that AutoDesk was in the picture early on and apparently acting as a publisher. While not highlighted in the article this may have been key to their success. The fact that they had a centralized agency acting as a sales force and marketing department, helped i am sure.
My technical co-founder is also remote. I'm not sure if I got really lucky or if it is our maturity but we have had a brilliant year of working together. (Cincinnati - Philly) I think it helps that I defer all of the technical to him and he the rest of the business to me so we each have our areas of expertise. However, there is a time in my future when one of us travels three days a week so that we can work at least in office proximity. We've utilized every piece of technology available to us and have had some monster long telephone calls into the night when there were flaws that we had to work through.
I suspect it is not the best way to work but with really good communication skills and trust in one another's expertise, it will work fine.
I worked from home for a startup (as a contractor, wasn't invested in the business at all) that had no office. In this case, the owner and other programmer were in the same metro area but, after a few initial meetings, I met with them in person less than once a month, on average. I can't say its ideal, it did annoy me having to always be on the phone with him, etc but he had a somewhat abrasive way of dealing with people to get his way so I'm not sure that this sort of setup would necessarily preclude success.
Having been on both sides, hands down working side by side is way better. Working long distance (in different states in my case) works okay up to a certain point. Not the best scenario and certainly doesn't last forever. Obviously take this with a grain of salt as this is my experience.
I'm positive that it's better to work side by side with someone, however I live in a technological wasteland (North West UK) and am unable to move (partner is at university here), so was considering how doable working remotely with someone would be. Thanks for your comment.
My cofounder and I were remote. He in SF with me in Maine. We would try to meetup every few months and would alternate who had to travel. It definitely requires more discipline and effort. I would say we did it successfully, though there was still room for improvement.
On of the things I noticed in the 3D Studio article though was that AutoDesk was in the picture early on and apparently acting as a publisher. While not highlighted in the article this may have been key to their success. The fact that they had a centralized agency acting as a sales force and marketing department, helped i am sure.